Yorkshire businesses are bucking the national trend by reducing the number of failures suffered during November, as compared with 12 months ago.

The region was one of just three in the country which did not report an increase in the number of liquidations during the month, with the national rate rising by 13 per cent on the same period last year.

There were 131 business failures in the Yorkshire and Humberside region, compared with 134 in November 2001.

However, the month-on-month picture was not so good, considering just 105 firms went out of business in October this year. Over the year sop far as a whole, there have been 1,386 failures in the region, a rise of 0.3 per cent on 2001.

The survey, carried out by Experian Commercial Business, showed there were 1,855 business failures across the UK during November.

And Experian managing director Phil Cotter painted a grim picture of the growing number of compulsory liquidations.

"The fact that compulsory liquidations are increasing so rapidly is indicative as the growing financial problems facing companies," he said.